Why Amazon built its workers a mini rain forest inside three domes in downtown Seattle

Posted :
February 8, 2018

Microsoft employees have treehouses. Apple workers have what’s been called a spaceship. And now Amazon’s staffers have a rainforest – or at least something like one – right in the middle of downtown Seattle.

On a typically overcast Monday, in a particularly Amazonian version of a ribbon-cutting ceremony for “the Spheres” – its giant glass-and-metal domes filled with tropical and rare plants – CEO Jeff Bezos asked the gathered attendees to look to the ceiling. A circular blue ring lit up, and the Amazon founder summoned its artificial intelligence assistant, Alexa, to officially open the building. (Bezos is also the owner of The Washington Post.)